{"id":"01KG8AP4N03DWX5H4TEWV4YZF1","cid":"bafkreih5fxj5x5vqwh5rzwpe4cdizn55sspgpy247h5dsi5ww3gnefhhzu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18524,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":18475,"text":"jumped from a whale-boat! I’d never beat my tambourine over base Pip,\r\nand hail him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame\r\nupon all cowards—shame upon them! Let ’em go drown like Pip, that\r\njumped from a whale-boat. Shame! shame!”\r\n\r\nDuring all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip\r\nwas led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock.\r\n\r\nBut now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now\r\nthat his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon\r\nthere seemed no need of the carpenter’s box: and thereupon, when some\r\nexpressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the\r\ncause of his sudden convalescence was this;—at a critical moment, he\r\nhad just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone;\r\nand therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet,\r\nhe averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter\r\nof his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a\r\nword, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to\r\nlive, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale,\r\nor some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.\r\n\r\nNow, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized;\r\nthat while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing,\r\ngenerally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.\r\nSo, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after\r\nsitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a\r\nvigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms\r\nand legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then\r\nspringing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon,\r\npronounced himself fit for a fight.\r\n\r\nWith a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and\r\nemptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there.\r\nMany spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of\r\ngrotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was\r\nstriving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on\r\nhis body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet\r\nand seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written\r\nout on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a\r\nmystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in\r\nhis own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one\r\nvolume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own\r\nlive heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore\r\ndestined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon\r\nthey were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought\r\nit must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his,\r\nwhen one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg—“Oh,\r\ndevilish tantalization of the gods!”\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMATFHPB7J72VNAZCYW91","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP4MTKSVF70EXBCP6B7PG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:32.832Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:55.647Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}